Washington Football Team: Refs miss insanely horrible facemask on Antonio Gibson
By Jerry Trotta
The Washington Football Team didn’t get off to a great start on Sunday, as they allowed the Chargers to cap a 10-play, 75-yard opening drive that took nearly six minutes off the clock with an Austin Ekeler touchdown run.
While Washington’s defense has since rebounded with a couple of nice stops, fans are still waiting for the offense to start clicking.
In fact, the lone bright spot for the offense thus far has been Antonio Gibson, who’s tallied 40 yards on just seven carries thus far.
How difficult has it been to tackle Gibson today? Well, let’s just say the Chargers defense resorted to breaking rules to slow him down.
On a first half carry, defensive lineman Justin Jones almost ripped Gibson’s helmet off on one of the more egregious facemask penalties you’ll ever see. The only problem? There wasn’t a penalty flag to be seen.
Not a penalty. pic.twitter.com/UIEWRmoPQ4
— Rudy Gersten (@DCBarno) September 12, 2021
Sunday’s refs somehow missed this blatant facemask on Football Team running back Antonio Gibson.
As is often the case, it looks more appalling in slow-mo, but this was obvious to anybody watching the second it happened.
It’s not even like it was a brief grab of the facemask area and Gibson kept chugging forward. Jones literally latched onto Gibson’s facemask and completely altered his course of direction, forcing him to plant his feet and go down.
We know better than to set expectations for NFL refereeing, but missing a flagrant penalty like this is unacceptable. If this is a sign of things to come, Washington fans are in for a season-long battle against the zebras.
Luckily, Gibson’s neck wasn’t hurt on the play.
